Composer and musician Pete M Wyer has created scores for the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Juilliard and Royal Opera House as well as several operas, music theatre works and soundscapes projected onto iconic buildings such as the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

iForest at Drums Along the Hudson

The iForest brings an immersive experience for a 72- voice choir (2018 Grammy winners, The Crossing, pre-recorded as three choirs of 24 voices each) to the ancient woodland of Inwood Hill Park via 24 separate speakers. Originally commissioned by the Wild Center, Tupper Lake, where it can still be experienced (https://vimeo.com/219417685) [hyperlink] the choir sing in the indigenous Mohawk language in western choral tradition, thanking every element of nature inspired by traditional Thanksgiving ceremonies, in a piece entitled ‘I Walk Towards Myself’.

Composer Pete M Wyer said: “In the Mohawk tradition, people see themselves as part of nature as opposed to having dominion over it. The piece is called ‘I Walk Towards Myself’, reflecting my aim that as we walk within the music we have a deeper sense of our connection to nature, which is a deeper sense of connection to ourselves.”

Pete M Wyer says: ​”​For ‘Twilight Chorus’, I have taken recordings of birdsong, slowed them down and transcribed them for singers. ​During the​ performance​, ​the singers ​will be​ dispersed across an area of Brooklyn Botanical Garden, again synchronized via an app. The audience is invited to experience the piece by moving between the voices – there​ is​ no single version of the piece​ and ​each person’s experience will be unique to them. The piece slowly evolves and brings the singers together at the end with more identifiably ​‘human​’ music.”

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See the trailer for iForest at Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan on June 3rd, 2018:

Watch the creation of The iForest at The Wild Center here, featuring a 72 voice choir who sing in indigenous the Mohawk language. Each voice is individually recorded and distributed across the woodland:

About

The iForest began in 2005 as part of a research project under the title ‘The iPod Forest’. Since then, Pete M Wyer’s research and development in immersive sound has led to the creation not only a raft of new works but to new ways of scoring, creating and experiencing music.

As well as conventional items such as pitch, rhythm, tone and dynamic, scores use spatiality as a component, mapping the trajectory of sounds that move through space:

An early handwritten score for the iForest.

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